The role of occupational attributes in gender earnings inequality, 1970–2010

Grounded in the research on the important role of social structures in forming gender inequalities, this study examines the effect of occupational attributes on the gender earnings gap over four decades. Using the IPUMS-USA from 1970 to 2010, the paper shows that occupational attributes cannot be reduced to the aggregate attributes of their individual incumbents. Rather, the effect of occupations on the gender earnings gap goes far beyond both the distributive role of occupational segregation and the effect of individual wage-related characteristics. Furthermore, occupations not only explain a significant portion of net gender pay gaps, but have also contributed to the narrowing of the gaps over the past several decades, as occupational attributes that favor women's pay have become more dominant over time.     

Occupational Gender Segregation and the Earnings Gap: Changes in the 1980s

The 1980 and 1990 U.S. Census data confirm the decline in the earnings gap between men and women. Occupational segregation by gender also declined during the 1980s. Cross-sectional decompositions show that 15% of the earnings gap would be eliminated if women′s occupation distributions were the same as men′s. Over-time decompositions show that declining occupational segregation accounted for about 36% of the decline in the earnings gap; most of the declining earnings gap resulted from more equal pay within occupations.     

Globalization, labor market transformation, and metropolitan earnings inequality

Numerous studies have noted the increasing levels of inequality in American society, but relatively few have linked this inequality to the dynamics of the global economy. In this study, we examine the impact of five measures of globalization (global capital, foreign direct investment, exports, foreign born non-citizens, and foreign born citizens) and six measures of labor market transformation (deindustrialization, corporate restructuring, bureaucratic burden, casualization, bad jobs, and multiple job holding) on metropolitan-level earnings inequality of full-time, full-year workers 16 years and older. Our study makes several major contributions to the literature. First, we update and extend the long line of studies on metropolitan earnings inequality. Second, we show that these various dimensions of globalization and labor market transformation exert independent and mainly polarizing effects on the earnings distributions of metropolitan areas, net of controls for labor market structure and sociodemographic variables. Third, we demonstrate the benefits of looking at the causes of inequality in the upper and lower tails of the earnings distribution. Finally, we develop a procedure to estimate counterfactual values of earnings inequality for all major metropolitan areas in the US in 2000. In the process, the paper provides a comprehensive accounting of the impact of globalization and labor market transformation on metropolitan earnings inequality.     

1978—2007年中国城乡收入差距的变迁及影响因素分析

改革开放以来,随着中国经济的高速增长,城乡收入差距已引起广泛关注。1978—2007年的30年间城乡收入差距在不断波动中呈上升趋势,城乡收入差距对全国收入差距的贡献率这一指标表明,城乡收入差距已成为中国目前最重要的收入差距。造成及影响中国城乡收入差距的因素是多方面的,如典型的城乡二元经济结构、第一产业收入增长受到多种因素的制约、保证农村居民收入增长的农业政策供给稀缺、城乡人力资本存量存在差距等。     

Race Composition and Earnings: Effects by Race, Region, and Gender

For more than 40 years, studies have reported that the higher the proportion of blacks in a community, the more white men earn, but the less black men earn. Researchers have speculated that black men earned less because earnings discrimination increases with percent black. Others have suggested that the negative effect of black representation on black men's earnings reflects black men's limited occupational opportunities. This study (1) investigates whether pay discrimination and regional location condition the relationship between black representation and workers' earnings and (2) examines the relationship between black representation and earnings for women. The results, based on 1980 Census data for black and white workers from 267 SMSAs, show that black representation was associated with higher earnings for white men and lower earnings for black men in both the north and south, and that part of the effect for southern black men stemmed from earnings discrimination. Southern black men's earnings gains from black representation offset some of the effects of discrimination, while northern black men encountered costs of black representation even in the absence of earnings discrimination. These findings reflect the disparate economic opportunities of black men in each region as manufacturing jobs have disappeared from the north and relocated to the south. For women, black representation led to higher earnings for blacks and whites. I argue that black representation does not lower black women's earnings because occupational sex segregation prevents black women from threatening white men's economic status.     

Some considerations concerning the functional form of earnings

The problem of choosing the correct functional form of earnings has plagued studies of social inequality and labor market segmentation. Although this choice has often been made on superficial grounds, the results presented in the current paper demonstrate that this choice has very significant implications for the empirical findings that emerge from the study of earnings determination. Four functional forms of earnings are compared: dollar earnings, earnings rank based on social perceptions as calibrated by P. Coleman and L. Rainwater (1978, Social Standing in America, Basic Books, New York) the natural logarithm of earnings, and the best-fitting power function transformation of earnings as estimated by the Box-Cox technique. Evaluation of a generalized earnings determination model on a sample of private sector employees produces very similar results across these four functional forms of earnings. More divergent results are obtained when the models are compared across subsamples based on class, economic sector, and gender. Significant contrasts between earnings coefficients across groups are much more likely when utilizing log earnings or the Box-Cox power transformation than when using either dollar earnings or perceived earnings. In addition, the contrasts observed for log earnings and Box-Cox earnings are frequently in the opposite direction of those observed for dollar earnings or perceived earnings. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for theoretical developments in the study of social inequality and labor market segmentation.     

Gender differences in the earnings produced by a middle range education: The case of Canadian ‘colleges’

In this paper we use data on consecutive cohorts of recent graduates from community colleges or community college-like institutions to address the following questions about the gender earnings gap: i) What was the trend in the gender earnings gap for these recent graduates? ii) What role in the observed trends in the gender earnings gap was played by occupational demand? iii) How and to what extent did the domestic division of labour contribute to the gender earnings gap in this young sample? We find that the gap fell then rose, that occupational demand played a role in these shifts, and that the domestic division of labour did indeed contribute to the gap in this young sample. Furthermore, our results point to a process of cumulation of factors that increase the earnings gap which has both substantive and methodological implications.     

Her money, her time: Women’s earnings and their housework hours

Do husbands and wives divide housework on the basis of who makes more money? Much of the recent literature has focused on the effects of individuals’ earnings relative to their partners’ on their housework. By contrast, this paper analyzes the effects of women’s own earnings on the time they spend doing housework in the context of heterosexual couple households. A conservative estimate using the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) is that the negative association of women’s housework with their own earnings is two to three times greater than that with their partners’; in the full model, the association with partners’ earnings is not statistically significant. The importance of women’s own earnings in housework models is highlighted by the comparable effect of income on housework among single women. It appears that so far as housework is concerned, women do not benefit greatly from their male partners’ incomes. The finding emphasizes the gender segregation of domestic labor, and underscores the importance of income differences among women in explaining their housework behavior. It shows that the difference between the mean housework hours of the women with the lowest and highest earnings is as large as the difference between the mean housework hours of women and men.     

阶层位置与对不平等的态度——关于国企工人阶层的不平等问题研究之一

改革开放以来,随着国企市场化改革的不断深入,既有分配体系的不完善极大影响了国企工人的生活境遇。在社会背景以及拥有的权利资源方面,国企工人不占据优势,相反在市场竞争中逐渐处于劣势。满足个体的需要,是社会正义的一个基本原则,否则个体的正义感难以形成。在经济不平等与政治不平等都极不利于国企工人阶层时,他们只有选择抗拒不平等。     

马克思主义方法论视野下的我国农民工回流问题

以马克思主义方法论来考察人口流动问题,就是坚持用唯物史观和唯物辩证法来观察现实,是研究我国农民工回流问题的重要理论工具。人口学、经济学分别从人口迁移、劳动力配置的视角出发来研究人口流动问题,却都存在着明显的局限性。农民工回流的诸多影响因素中户籍制度障碍、政府的政策效应、城镇和农村经济形势的变化、工资待遇和工作环境等是农民工回流的外部社会原因,年龄、受教育程度、婚姻状况、性别、健康状况、技能和家庭事件等是农民工回流的个体原因,农民工回流即是这两种因素交织作用的结果。在社会个体化的时代背景下,回流是农民工自主性的一种体现。虽然城乡户籍制度的二元区隔在很大程度上造成了农民工的回流,但是城市经济社会发展的特殊阶段以及农民工对现实的考量才是回流产生的根本原因。主动回流与被动回流给农村社区带来的影响是不同的,如何将这种农民工回流的能量转化为推动乡村发展的动力与智力,需要制度扶持和政策引导。     

Visible and invisible hands intertwined: State-market symbiotic interactions and changing income inequality in urban China

Analyzing the restructured political economy in 21st-century urban China, this project develops a “symbiotic interaction” model and reconceptualizes the state-market relationship to appreciate the changing inequality patterns. As the state and market have formed a long-term, intimate relationship, dynamic state policies interact with the fragmented labor market to redefine a set of socioeconomic capitals and statuses in affecting income inequality. Drawing empirical evidence from the Chinese General Social Survey 2003 and 2013 data, this paper employs linear and unconditional quantile regressions to compare income disparity patterns along both temporal and socio-spatial dimensions. The findings show that multiple key factors, including human capital (e.g., college education), political capital (e.g., party membership), occupational status (e.g., self-employment), and organizational type (e.g., state-owned enterprise), have all changed their economic returns over time and also played different roles for various earning groups. These findings suggest that we should conduct substantive institutional analyses of the evolving state-market relationship and their interplay to achieve a deeper understanding of the reshuffled stratification order in contemporary China. The proposed analytical framework also has broad implications in the research of other transitional economies.     

Societal Inequality and individual subjective well-being: Results from 68 societies and over 200,000 individuals, 1981–2008

Income inequality has been contentious for millennia, a source of political conflict for centuries, and is now widely feared as a pernicious “side effect” of economic progress. But equality is only a means to an end and so must be evaluated by its consequences. The fundamental question is: What effect does a country's level of income inequality have on its citizens' quality of life, their subjective well-being? We show that in developing nations inequality is certainly not harmful but probably beneficial, increasing well-being by about 8 points out of 100. This may well be Kuznets's inverted “U”: In the earliest stages of development some are able to move out of the (poorly paying) subsistence economy into the (better paying) modern economy; their higher pay increases their well-being while simultaneously increasing inequality. In advanced nations, income inequality on average neither helps nor harms. Estimates are from random-intercept fixed-effects multi-level models, confirmed by over four dozen sensitivity tests. Data are from the pooled World Values/European Values Surveys, Waves 1 to 5 with 169 representative national samples in 68 nations, 1981 to 2009, and over 200,000 respondents, replicated and extended in the European Quality of Life Surveys.     

Diversity preferences among employees and ethnoracial workplace segregation

Ethno-racial workplace segregation increases already existing ethno-racial inequality. While previous research has identified discriminatory employers as drivers of workplace segregation, this study addresses the role of the employees. Sociological and social psychological theory suggest that people prefer to surround themselves with people who positively confirm their social identity or who contribute with higher group status. Through web-based surveys, we measure employee attitudes and preferences concerning ethno-racial workplace diversity, to what extent they differ by ethnicity/race, and if they contain intersectional patterns. Thereafter, we use simulation models to analyze the consequences for workplace segregation that these preferences would have, if realized.The main survey results showed that all ethno-racial groups favored their own in-group as colleagues, especially European Americans. As a secondary choice, the respondents preferred the out-group with the highest labor market status. Intersectional patterns were identified, as minority women were preferred as colleagues over minority men. Our simulation model, based on the results of two surveys on stated vs. indirectly revealed preferences, showed that employee preferences were at best not diverse enough to desegregate workplaces. When based on the most common preferences (i.e. excluding a few outliers), the simulations even suggested that these preferences can cause segregation. We relate these findings to Schelling's model of segregation.     

劳动力市场状况与犯罪:理论、仿真与浙江经验

劳动力市场状况与犯罪的关系是犯罪经济学最核心的研究主题之一.基于浙江28个县1980年到1989年的面板数据,本文对劳动力市场状况影响犯罪供给的机理和效应展开了详细的定性定量分析.双侧固定效应模型的估计结果显示:(1)工资差距每上升一个百分点,一般刑事犯罪率将平均上升0.15％;(2)相比侵财犯罪,暴力犯罪对工资收入差距扩大的弹性更大;(3)刑罚威慑弱化和快速的城市化是20世纪80年代后期浙江犯罪率显著攀升的重要原因.以上估计结果对犯罪供给方程估计中存在的不可观测的异质性、遗漏变量及样本选择等典型的内生性问题保持稳健,因而,为国内外犯罪经济学的实证研究提供了新证据,对我国转型期犯罪治理公共政策制定存在相应的参考价值.     

Economic deprivation and racial segregation: Comparing Superfund sites in Portland, Oregon and Detroit, Michigan

The research presented here weighs the ability of two major explanations of social inequality—Massey and Denton’s racial segregation explanation and Wilson’s emphasis on economic deprivation (concentrated poverty)—to predict environmental inequality. Two sets of logistic regression analyses are used to predict the location of Superfund sites in Portland, Oregon and Detroit, Michigan providing a conditional understanding of environmental inequality within a larger sociological context. The analysis includes a general examination of the two theories in all census tracts in both cities and a set of analyses focusing upon Black neighborhoods in Detroit. The findings indicate that there is support for explanations of environmental inequality that include both racial segregation and economic deprivation, but that the more powerful of the two is economic deprivation. The results suggest that even though African-American neighborhoods disproportionately house Superfund sites, these facilities are more likely to be located in Black neighborhoods that are economically deprived.     

Gender differences in the impact of job mobility on earnings: The role of occupational segregation

In recent years, researchers have begun to explore the extent to which the impact of switching firms (inter-firm mobility) on wages varies between men and women. Using data from the NLSY79 from 1979 to 2012, this paper extends existing research by exploring how occupational segregation and individual level factors contribute to gender differences in the impact of voluntary inter-firm mobility on wages. The paper also examines how patterns vary depending on education level. Findings suggest that men without a college education receive greater wage gains from voluntary inter-firm mobility than similarly educated women although there is no overall gender difference for individuals with a bachelor's degree. The wage returns to voluntary inter-firm mobility for both men and women increase as a function of the male representation in the occupation. For individuals without a college education, the male premium to voluntary inter-firm mobility is largest in highly male dominated occupations. However, women with a bachelor's degree employed in highly male dominated occupations use voluntary inter-firm mobility to narrow the gender wage gap.     

多视角下的企业人力资源管理角色发展动因

随着经济全球化趋势的发展,我国经济发展进程不断加快,中国逐渐进入知识经济时代,知识经济在市场经济中的地位不断提高,企业要想实现发展,就要提高人才与知识的竞争,要重视人力资源管理。企业的人力资源管理水平是评价企业发展前景的重要指标之一,对企业的发展来说是非常重要的,企业进行科学、合理的人力资源管理配置,能够帮助企业制定正确的发展路线,不断完善企业未来的发展规划,为企业的发展方向提供指导。文章主要对人力资源管理角色发展的动因进行阐述,站在不同的视角下,分析人力资源管理角色发展的概念,针对当前企业人力资源管理过程中的问题进行分析,研究当前企业中人力资源管理角色发展的趋势,为现代企业发展提供人才支持。     

Field of study variation throughout the college pipeline and its effect on the earnings gap: Differences between ethnic and immigrant groups in Israel

This study demonstrates the analytical leverage gained from considering the entire college pipeline—including the application, admission and graduation stages—in examining the economic position of various groups upon labor market entry. The findings, based on data from three elite universities in Israel, reveal that the process that shapes economic inequality between different ethnic and immigrant groups is not necessarily cumulative. Field of study stratification does not expand systematically from stage to stage and the position of groups on the field of study hierarchy at each stage is not entirely explained by academic preparation. Differential selection and attrition processes, as well as ambition and aspirations, also shape the position of ethnic groups in the earnings hierarchy and generate a non-cumulative pattern. These findings suggest that a cross-sectional assessment of field of study inequality at the graduation stage can generate misleading conclusions about group-based economic inequality among workers with a bachelor’s degree.     

中国城市女性职场权力获得:通往国家与市场的二元路径

本文利用CGSS2006的数据尝试建构一个社会主义国家城市职场的性别权力模型。国外关于女性职场权力获得研究,主要是从两个视角出发的:即基于家庭责任的理性选择视角,以及基于职场性别结构的工业主义视角。本文提出了一个新的视角,即制度区隔的视角。研究发现,在通往中国城市职场权力的道路上,存在明显的性别歧视。进一步的研究发现,女性的权力获得存在国家与市场的二元路径,具体而言,在通往市场单位的权力之路上,在控制其他变量后,性别的差异仍然显著。不过在通往国家的权力之路上,在控制其他变量后,性别的差异不再显著。本文认为,这是因为通往国家单位的权力道路上存在一定的性别平等意识形态的保护,而市场单位的权力路径则不受此限制。这表明制度区隔视角对于中国城市职场的性别权力获得具有一定的解释力。     

From general discrimination to segmented inequality: Migration and inequality in urban China

Internal migration in China during the last three decades, the largest in human history, offers a rare opportunity to understand inequalities in the making. Using data spanning 10 years from China’s largest metropolis, Shanghai, this study assesses how enduring state institutions interplay with the spread of market forces to shape income inequality between migrants and native urban workers. Though the wages of both Chinese migrants and urban workers rose considerably, economic restructuring during the decade under study resulted in diminished privileges for urbanites and subsequently increased collision between migrants and urban workers in the private sectors. These shifts, rather than substantially reducing inequality, have led to an evolving form of inequality, from an initial general blatant discrimination against migrants across the board, to a new and more subtle form of inequality characterized by substantial segmented discrimination against migrants within economic sectors, with the degree of inequality varying from sector to sector. We discuss how this changing inequality reflects complementary rather than competing roles of the state and market institutions in inequality creation and maintenance.